Residents of Ipswich West have spoken, more with a roar than a whisper. Darren Zanow is the new LNP member after a massive swing in the by-election. This is only the fourth time since 1960 the seat has not been held by Labor.
What went so right for the LNP and wrong for Labor? The answer depends on who you ask.
Labor knew the previous member Jim Madden was not going to run again and there must have been some inside the party who were aware he would pull the pin early to run for council.
A candidate should have been chosen much earlier and been out and about in the community for months, not a few weeks. Even more so if that person, in this case Wendy Bourne, is not well-known across the electorate.
Several other issues conspired to unseat Labor. The by-election itself, although surprisingly it didn’t hurt Madden. The media frenzy around crime is another.
Perhaps the most important were the local issues like the inertia surrounding the Mount Crosby Road interchange, Norman Street bridge and the dire situation faced often when attending emergency at Ipswich Hospital. Here Labor was mostly silent or if they did have a message it failed to resonate.
Meanwhile the LNP seemed to approach the campaign with renewed vigour and the masterstroke selection of Zanow. I have a hunch their internal tracking showed them in with a good chance, so we witnessed several visits from the opposition leader and other senior LNP members to support their candidate.
Last week I was contacted by a resident who shared a story with me. A few years ago they returned to their car at Riverlink to find a note under the windscreen with contact details of the person who bumped into it and caused a small dint the size of a 10 cent coin. The note was from Darren Zanow. Sometimes nice guys do finish first.
I said last week and it is worth repeating, as a community we should thank all candidates, regardless of political flavour, for putting themselves forward for public office.
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